An investigation into the conflict handling at pre - contract stage of building construction projects in Sri Lanka

Abstract

Sri Lankan construction projects suffer from frequent conflicts between the design team professionals during the pre-contract stage of the projects as it claims a high diversity of multidisciplinary involvement. These different conflicts result in both positive and negative influence on the project. To handle these different types of conflicts, professionals use different styles during the pre-contract stage of building construction projects in Sri Lanka. Hence, the aim of this study was set to investigate the conflict-handling styles that can be used to minimize the conflicts during the pre-contract stage of building construction projects in Sri Lanka. Study on the existence of different types of conflicts and their handling styles were derived through a quantitative approach using a questionnaire survey designed incorporating Rahim’s Organisational Conflict Inventory-II (ROCI-II) distributed among 42 number of professionals (Engineers, Project Managers, Architects, Quantity Surveyors, Cost Managers and Adjudicators) engaged in Sri Lankan building construction projects during the pre-contract stage. Collected data were coded and analysed incorporating descriptive statistics with mean, standard deviation, frequency, and percentage counts through Likert Scale analysis. The scope of the study was limited to the pre-contract stage of building construction projects. According to research findings, it was revealed that task conflicts occur very often and process conflicts occur often during pre-contract stage. Further, relationship conflicts and status conflicts found to be rare during the pre-contract stage between the design team professionals. The findings also indicated that to handle these four types of conflicts with their supervisors, peers and subordinates, the majority of professionals use the integrating style and obliging style, and they use competing, avoiding and compromising styles as final options to handle conflicts with their supervisors, peers and subordinates, respectively. The study finally revealed the different styles that the professional use to handle different types of conflicts with their supervisors, peers and subordinates during the pre-contract stage of building construction projects in Sri Lanka. The study would be helpful for the industry practitioners engaged in the pre-contract stage of building construction projects to identify their personnel style of handling conflicts and the outcome of using each style for different conflict types with their supervisors, peers and subordinates.